Taking Flight (30 page)

When Cammie and Wendy parted, Wendy returned to the kitchen with a spring in her step. As did Cammie, to a degree, when she resumed setting the table.

“Years of that,” I marveled quietly, and didn’t realize David had heard me until he glanced my way, his eyebrows furrowed. I tried to leave quickly to go hide the other letter upstairs, but Wendy called out that dinner was ready, and I had to leave it in my pocket instead.

Dinner was tense. Wendy talked a mile a minute about what Cammie’s college would be like and how close by she’d be and how much she’d love it, and eventually, David couldn’t take it anymore. I watched him throughout dinner and spotted the exact moment where he ran out of patience.

“But if Cammie gets accepted to another school she prefers more than this one, she’d be welcome to go there, I’d think.”

I saw what he was doing: testing the waters with Wendy, who immediately looked confused. “What do you mean? Cammie only applied to two schools, and this is the one we agreed would be better for her.”

“Better how?” he asked. “Because it’s closer?”

“Well, yes, that’s one reason,” Wendy replied. “It’s also harder to get into than the other one, and it’s got a wider variety of majors for her to choose from.”

“For you to choose from
for
her, you mean,” David corrected. My mouth dropped open in surprise before I managed to quickly shut it, and beside me, Cammie straightened up and stiffened. Wendy seemed stunned into silence for a moment as she and David stared at each other.

When she finally found her voice again, she seemed genuinely surprised. “No, of course not. I want what Cammie wants, and she and I happen to want the same things.”

“How convenient.” David cut a piece of meat off of the steak on his plate and casually took a bite even as Wendy continued to stare at him, appalled.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

David chewed and swallowed, then cleared his throat before he replied. “What would happen if Cammie made a life decision you didn’t agree with? Hypothetically.”

Wendy let out a short laugh. “Honey, that hasn’t happened. I’m not sure why we’re having this discussion.”

“What if it did?” David pressed.

“Dad,” Cammie cut in sharply, and then subtly shook her head. “Mom’s right. I agree with her about where I should go, so I’m not sure what the big deal is.”

David stared hard at her. “Cammie—”

“
Dad
,” she cut him off.

Meanwhile, I was just eager to leave before things grew any tenser, or before Wendy caught on and then somehow found a way to blame me. “I’m done eating, thanks for dinner,” I announced, standing quickly. Then I froze and looked down as the folded letter left my coat pocket and, as though in slow motion, fluttered down to the ground beside Wendy’s chair. It landed with a soft tap, and she looked down as my face grew red. I moved quickly to grab it, but not before she caught sight of it.

“What’s that?” she asked.

When I straightened up, the letter was visible in my hands. I shot Cammie a panicked look, and she returned it with one of her own. David looked back and forth between the two of us and immediately caught on.

“Just a letter from my friend,” I squeaked out, and then abruptly reconsidered pursuing acting as a profession.

Wendy wasn’t buying it anyway, but David shot me down immediately, getting to his feet. “No, it’s not. Give it to me.”

“Dad, stop,” Cammie insisted, rising too. With everyone but an uncertain Wendy on their feet, she too stood and faced me. “You think you’re helping but you’re not.”

“And you think you’re doing the right thing, I get it,” he countered. “But this isn’t right for you, and now that I know that, I’m not going to let it go on. I wouldn’t be a good father if I did.” He turned to me, his arm outstretched. “Lauren, give me the letter.”

“What on earth is going on?” Wendy cut in. “David, what’s gotten into you?”

Beside David, Cammie’s face had gone red. For a moment, I considered trying to get the letter to her, but deep down, I had a feeling she’d do something with it she’d regret. An image of Cammie glancing back and forth between her parents and then ripping the letter into tiny pieces came to mind, and I immediately handed the letter over to David.

“Thank you,” he said shortly, and opened it himself. He scanned it quickly, and then offered it to Cammie. “You were accepted.”

“Accepted? Where, to her other school?” asked Wendy, who, beside me, was still understandably lost. I hid a grin at the stunned look on Cammie’s face. When it truly sank in that she’d gotten into her dream school, even she could no longer completely hide behind her usual mask.

“To the art school she applied to in New York,” David elaborated for her. “She’ll be going there in the fall.”

Cammie jumped in quickly there. “No, wait. Only if it’s okay with you, Mom, I swear. I should’ve told you I applied. I won’t go if you don’t want me to.”

“Yes, you will,” said David, his voice firm.

Wendy looked back and forth between them, lips parted in surprise. At last, she let out a short laugh and shook her head, her gaze falling to Cammie. “Sweetie, this is ridiculous. What are you two talking about? New York? Art school? You’re not an artist.”

Cammie swallowed hard and the nodded her head shortly, as though that was the end of the discussion. “Okay.”

“Cameron, that’s enough.” David held out a hand to silence her. “You’re not doing this anymore. It ends here. I want you to tell your mother the truth.”

Cammie looked back and forth between her parents, clear panic in her eyes. “Dad—” she tried again, but he shook his head, speaking next to Wendy.

“I love you, honey, but you have to let our kids do what they want with their own lives. We can’t control them.”

“I’m not controlling anyone!” Wendy insisted. “Scott’s off having the time of his life on his honeymoon, and Cammie’s never said a word about art school. How is this my fault?”

“It’s not your fault. We’re both at fault.” David hesitated, and then told her, “We can talk about this in private. Cammie, I’m very proud of you.” He led Wendy away to their bedroom, and Cammie and I stood in the dining room in stunned silence. I watched her look down at the letter in her hands.

“I can’t believe I got in,” she murmured. Then she added, “I can’t believe I just told my mom I wouldn’t go.”

“Your dad will talk some sense into her,” I promised. “She’ll be okay.”

“What if she’s not?”

“Then you go anyway.” Cammie started to shake her head, and I repeated, more firmly, “Then you
go anyway
, Cammie. You think your dad would let you give this up?”

“It’s my decision.”

I heaved a sigh, frustrated. “
Stop
. You have no idea how hard this is to watch. We’re
all
in your corner, okay? So just… get there yourself, and we can help. The whole world isn’t against you. In fact, most of us are on your side.”

I jumped and Cammie winced as shouting abruptly started up from the bedroom. Cammie looked to me, wide-eyed, and I asked, “Do you think he told her about us?”

Cammie shook her head. “If he had, it’d be
much
worse than that.”

* * *

Wendy cried a lot that day. I felt bad for her. I didn’t think she was a bad person — way misguided, perhaps, and a little controlling, but never downright evil — and, in a way, she was mourning the loss of her daughter.

David, in true therapeutic fashion, sat them down together while I watched from the sidelines and had Cammie, against her will, spill all but two things: the promiscuity, and everything and anything involving me.

What she
did
spill was her aversion to cheerleading and all of her friends. The truth about the movie posters. The boys she’d dated only because her mom had approved of them. The colleges she’d never wanted to go to. The drawings and briefcase she’d kept hidden.

She talked for hours about how hard she’d worked to be everything Wendy’d wanted her to be, and I knew it didn’t make any sense to Wendy, who didn’t really have the full story. Without explaining the way it’d all started back at age eight, Cammie left a massive gap in her story that couldn’t be filled until she put the last puzzle piece in: her sexuality. And even David wasn’t about to make her do that yet.

And Wendy asked the question that made the most sense, knowing what she knew: “What did I do to make you feel like you needed to do this? Did I pressure you? I thought it was all what you wanted?”

Cammie opened and closed her mouth for a moment. “I just… I felt like you wouldn’t like me otherwise. I wanted you to like me. I wanted to make you proud.”

“I can be proud watching you do what you love. I can do that. You can be who you want. I thought you knew that.” Wendy was sobbing out her words, and I shifted uncomfortably, wondering if this was all really going to happen today. Cammie looked so badly like she wanted to say more.

“But you can’t say that and then…” she trailed off, inhaling sharply and then letting out a shaky breath. “I just don’t want you to hate me.”

“Honey, I don’t hate you. I would be lying if I said that this wasn’t shocking, or that I wouldn’t prefer you’d stay here… and I really wish you
would
consider staying here… but ultimately I’m going to support you doing what you love. You didn’t have to go to all this trouble just for me.”

“I can consider staying here,” Cammie admitted. “I will consider it. Nothing’s set in stone.”

“Good.” Wendy looked relieved. “Can I see some of your drawings?”

Cammie paused, stunned, and then a grin spread across her lips. “You want to? Really?”

“Of course. Where are they?”

“Upstairs; I’ll get them. One second!” Cammie rushed off to do just that, and I saw David and Wendy exchange a warm look. Wendy still had tears in her eyes, and I had no doubt she’d be doing more crying by herself later, but I was so, so happy for Cammie. Today was a big deal, and I knew it’d given her hope, because it’d given me hope, too.

But I was also under no delusions regarding Wendy’s unchanged views on homosexuality. Any decent parent would feel terrible upon learning their daughter had sacrificed her own happiness to make her parents happy. But make that parent religious and make the issue of choice sexuality and it was a whole different story. Wendy accepted that enjoyed activities and pastimes couldn’t be changed and that Cammie liked what she liked, but I had a feeling that sexuality was an exception to the rule.

When — or
if
— Cammie dropped
that
bomb, Wendy’d go nuclear. And even David knew it.

* * *

Scott and Jill returned a few days later, and David pulled Scott aside on his first day back to talk to him, most likely about the situation with Cammie and Wendy. They went out together afterward to go look at the house Scott had been working on buying since a week or so before his wedding. I found out when they returned that Scott would be moving out in another week.

He was cold to me while he lived with us. I didn’t expect anything else from him; I was just thankful he kept Cammie’s secret from Wendy. And even better: David noticed his coolness within a couple of days and had a talk with him, at which point his attitude seemed to approve considerably. By the time his week was up, he’d occasionally exchange a few sentences with me, even if he still seemed emotionally distant. With Cammie, he seemed to feel sorry for her more than anything, but she was too busy enjoying her time with her mom and her nights back in her own bedroom with me to care.

I helped Scott pack up his room on his last day while David, Wendy, and Cammie were at the other house moving him in.

“Do you want these all in boxes?” I asked him, gesturing to the books on a small bookcase by where his bed used to be.

“Huh?” he glanced over to me. “Oh, yeah. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

We worked in silence for a half hour or so, packing things up and then moving them downstairs one by one, until Scott finally spoke up again as I was finishing up another box.

“Hey.” I glanced over to him, acknowledging him, and he arched an eyebrow. “You ever been with a guy?”

I snorted and shook my head, looking back to the box in front of me again. “No.”

“Why not?”

I rolled my eyes. “Same reason you haven’t. Never felt the need to try it out.”

“Girls are made for guys,” he grunted out as he lifted his box. “Like puzzle pieces.”

I wrinkled my nose and followed him out as we carried our boxes to the stack by the front door. “Gross.”

“Cammie’ll find one she likes,” he called over his shoulder. “Dad doesn’t think so, but I know it. There’s someone out there for everyone.”

“I’m gonna be really sad when that happens,” I said. “Do you think she’ll give me a warning?”

“She’s not like you.” He set his box down and shook his head at me. “You might be too far gone, but she knows what’s right.”